Defrutum

Defrutum in the ancient Roman cuisine, a fermented, cooked grape must, which as a sweetener for sauces, as a general sweetener was ( sugar was very rare and expensive, honey was the only viable alternative), or was used as a sweet reserve the wine. According to Pliny ( Naturalis historia 14.80 ) Most of the half was, according to Varro ( in Non. 551.18 ) and Columella ( De re rustica 12,21,1 ) boiled down to one-third of its original volume. In order to enhance the sweetness, it was recommended to cook the grape in lead containers ( sugar of lead ); However, this is very harmful to our current knowledge.

Other wine syrups were the sapa and caroenum. For the sapa grape must was boiled down also on a third ( Pliny [ lc 14.180 ] and Palladius [ agricultura 11,18,2 ] ). Columella ( supra 12,19,1 ) and Varro ( ibid ). leave, however, the sapa boil down only to half its volume. The caroenum other hand, is only reduced by one third ( Palldius (op. cit 11,18,1 ) and Isidore ( Origines 20,3,15 ) ).

Under the name Pekmez a syrup of thickened grape juice in Turkish cuisine is in use.